What Is It About 20-Somethings?

24/08/2010

By Staff

Why are so many people in their 20s taking so long to grow up? The New York Times‘s Robin Marantz Henig tries to uncover possible answers to the question—

“The 20s are a black box, and there is a lot of churning in there. One-third of people in their 20s move to a new residence every year. Forty percent move back home with their parents at least once. They go through an average of seven jobs in their 20s, more job changes than in any other stretch. Two-thirds spend at least some time living with a romantic partner without being married. And marriage occurs later than ever. The median age at first marriage in the early 1970s, when the baby boomers were young, was 21 for women and 23 for men; by 2009 it had climbed to 26 for women and 28 for men, five years in a little more than a generation.

“We’re in the thick of what one sociologist calls ‘the changing timetable for adulthood’. Sociologists traditionally define the ‘transition to adulthood’ as marked by five milestones: completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having a child. In 1960, 77 percent of women and 65 percent of men had, by the time they reached 30, passed all five milestones. Among 30-year-olds in 2000, according to data from the United States Census Bureau, fewer than half of the women and one-third of the men had done so. A Canadian study reported that a typical 30-year-old in 2001 had completed the same number of milestones as a 25-year-old in the early ’70s.”

The article, which you can read in its entirety here, has been widely talked about. Click here for an in-depth discussion on Slate.com about the New York Times feature.

The figures stated in the article pertain to U.S. citizens, but the phenomenon is by no means restricted to one country. We’d love to hear your thoughts about the issue. What is it about 20-somethings?